


Fell Down Like Thunder

by ruanyu



Series: All Things Counter [5]
Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Alternate Universe - Daemons, Awesome Darcy Lewis, Awesome Jane Foster, Bruce Banner & Tony Stark Friendship, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Has Nightmares, Bucky Barnes Remembers, Bucky Barnes Returns, Darcy Lewis Is a Good Bro, Darcy Lewis Swears, Dreams and Nightmares, Flashbacks, Gen, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, Minor Jane Foster/Thor, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Darcy Lewis, Protective Steve Rogers, Protective Thor, Self-Hatred, Thor Is Not Stupid, Violence, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-24
Updated: 2016-05-24
Packaged: 2018-06-10 07:09:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6944851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ruanyu/pseuds/ruanyu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He drifted into soft darkness and there were no nightmares, for once, until he felt something brush over his body and touch his cheek. The soldier lashed out in panic, grappling for a firm grip on something he could break, snap, end. He rolled, came up straddling a struggling body, catching flailing arms. </p><p>There were dark wide eyes looking at him in terror, his human hand gripping two human fragile wrists and pinning them down, the bionic hand pressing against the target’s gasping mouth so it could not bite, though it tried anyway, teeth grinding on his metal fingers.  There was a drumming sound, the sound of tiny hooves beating a staccato rhythm.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fell Down Like Thunder

**Author's Note:**

> This is the fifth part of All Things Counter, and won't make much sense without reading the other stories first.
> 
> CW: Violence, not graphic but a central scene.

_So tell me where were you?_  
_When everything fell down like thunder_  
_I begged you to pull me through_  
_I couldn't get out from under_

Red – Out from Under

 

Bucky was hungry. His stomach growled at the mouthwatering smell of food drifting in from the kitchen, and the involuntary sound stirred him from his self-imposed solitude, the mostly quiet and sometimes too loud place where he went away from here and now. He was sitting in the one armchair tucked in the corner with clear sight lines, as still as he’d learned how to be, human and bionic hands carefully on the arms of the chair, his daemon settled by his feet. He’d made himself take on some of the soldier’s patient mindless obedience to not look around the messy unfamiliar room, not flinch at sudden noises, not embarrass himself by shaking or making sudden sounds, the externalisations of his anxiety. It took all of his concentration not to snap, run, hide. Thor’s place was louder than he had expected -- Lobo was flinching minutely at each noise, pressing back against the chair. 

Most of the noise was Darcy’s fault – her and her too energetic raccoon daemon. Bucky had been somewhat amused to see that Darcy spoke to herself as she worked on the computer, and sometimes flung her stationary (which the raccoon retrieved) and cursed with an impressive fluently (the raccoon chittering along with her). Bucky had a hard time not flinching at the sudden sounds himself, much less the objects flying past him, and every time Darcy cursed or threw something she stopped with comically widened eyes and babbled apologies at him, saying she hoped she hadn’t disturbed him too much. She hadn’t said much else except those apologies. She seemed nervous, frightened of him and his eerie stillness and his unsettlingly quiet daemon who had not even tried to make friends with her over-friendly racoon, and he couldn’t blame her for her unease.

 “It’s fine,” he said gruffly, the third time she apologized for being noisy. He was surprised by how badly he wanted her not to be afraid of him, of his daemon.

Her brows jumped. Her head tilted – from nervous to inquisitive. “So you can talk.” 

“Uhm,” Bucky said. “Yes.”

She flapped her hand erratically. He noted the bright yellow nails, zigzagged with black, and marveled at how long it must have taken her to create art on the tiny canvas of her nails. “Never mind me, you don’t have to talk to me if you don’t want to,” she said. “Just…you’re slightly less scary now I know.”

He stared at her. It wasn’t often people spoke their mind like that, and it was curiously refreshing.

“Not that you were scary before,” she blurted, a beat too late. “Not at all. Not even a little.”

To his surprise, Bucky felt his lips curving into a small smile. She beamed back at him, reflexive and uncomplicatedly accepting. “I made the Winter Soldier smile,” she said, almost to herself. “Huh.” The raccoon made a pleased sound, clever dark paws coming together in an almost clap and the hyena gazed at him with a cocked head, as puzzled as Bucky was about all this effortless, honest expressiveness.

 “You could make most people smile, Darcy,” said Jane, her voice fond. She was sitting at the other end of the table from Darcy, working on her laptop, her corner much neater than Darcy’s, which was full of crumpled papers and uncapped pens. Jane looked at Bucky, and paused as though she wanted to say something, before glancing down at Lobo, who showed his fangs defensively.

“I’m sorry to be intruding,” Bucky said stiffly, because Steve would say something like that, but he wondered what he would do if they asked him to go somewhere else. Bruce was down with Stark in the labs, and Bucky was not looking forward to going knocking on that door in order to ask them to babysit him until Steve returned. He had not spoken to Stark yet, not since. 

Jane looked startled, and then her eyes softened. Bucky almost turned away. He was relieved beyond measure when she was matter of fact and a little chiding instead of too kind. “You’re not intruding. We’re happy to have you. I was just wondering if you were hungry.”

“Of course he is hungry. And that is good, for the peat-zah has arrived,” Thor announced, in his booming voice, emerging from the kitchen, breaking up the word into two distinct syllables with a sharp h sound that made it sound like an exotic cuisine. He beamed at them and made an over elaborate gesture, as though inviting them into a palace and not the kitchen.

Darcy jumped up form her chaotic workplace. “Pizza,” she squealed, clapping her hands like a child and somehow not looking silly at all. And just like that, the three of them took Bucky away from his self-imposed isolation, and filled his plate while they talked around him comfortably, while Darcy made noises that belonged strictly in the bedroom over cheese-filled crust and Jane smiled reassuringly at him whenever he met her eyes. Bucky was surprised to see how the table had been laid as though at a banquet. It turned out that Thor had become a pizza aficionado after he’d been introduced to take out and, to Jane's amusement, insisted that a pizza delivery be treated with the respect of home-cooked meals and a sit down dinner. Pizza, Thor explained, was glorious food, though it was not available in Asgard. Neither was coffee. Alas.

Again, to his surprise, Bucky found himself smiling at the man's theatricality, at the rhapsodies to earth food, at the honesty of emotion exuding from these people, who seemed to have nothing to hide. 

 

Steve had left Bucky at Thor's apartment exactly three hours and twenty five minutes ago, promising that he would be back soon, when he was done with his “delicate mission.” Sam was right, Bucky thought, Steve was treating him like a child, and a socially inept, awkward child at that. What made it worse was that this was about where Bucky felt he was, a child who did not know how to behave around strangers.

The only thing that kept him from running was Thor, because if anyone other than Steve could put the soldier down, it would be Thor. Or the Hulk, but that would not be advisable. Bucky needed that guarantee. He couldn’t trust that the device Stark had made would be enough to stop him.

 After his conversation with Bruce, he had insisted that Stark’s invention needed to be made available to everyone at the tower. Bruce had taken his request seriously, despite his own misgivings, and had called a meeting a few days ago where he and Stark had told everyone what had happened in a carefully circumscribed way. They had not spilled any secrets about the why and the how of it, just that this was a precaution that Bucky had requested. 

Bucky himself had not attended the meeting. It would have been too difficult, for them as well as for him, too painful to sit there and confess that he needed to be controlled. Bruce had reminded him he was not the only one, that there were cells in the building made to imprison The Other Guy. But Bucky didn’t need to remember lying on that table, retreating inside the soldier’s obedient mind, letting the one who knew how to take the pain lead. The soldier was too comfortable inside Bucky’s head. There would be no exorcism, but at least they whould have a way to incapacitate him should the soldier reappear. 

SHIELD were apparently happier now that they knew they had something that worked against the soldier. Coulson had praised Stark for making the device, Bruce said. Apparently Stark hadn’t handled that too well.

“Tony looked like he wanted to run away,” Steve had said, when he’d come back from the meeting. He had not been too happy himself, had come home with an expression like he’d eaten something that disagreed with him. “He kept telling me that he’d only done it because you went to him asking to be…made safe.” Steve didn’t have to say that it hurt to find out that way, to be told that Bucky did not trust himself. Instead, Steve pulled something from his pocket, laid it in the palm of his hand. It was deceptively small, innocuous as any of Stark's little gadgets. “You did ask, didn’t you?” Steve said, deceptively off hand, looking down at the device instead of at Bucky.

Bucky knew that if he hinted that anything about his visit with Stark had gone against his wishes, Steve and Tony would never work together again. “Yes,” he said, firmly. “Stark only did what I asked.”

 “I wanted to throw it out of the window when Bruce gave it to me.” Steve curled his fingers around it. “Carrying around something meant to hurt you…”

“To stop me. Or to stop the soldier. You understand why,” Bucky said, standing, coming closer. “Don’t you?”

 Steve’s jaw clenched, his eyes serious. “I understand why you want this, but I will never use it against you. Never.”

Bucky had shaken his head, but he had not argued beyond pointing out the obvious. “You might need to,” he said simply. “And what if you’re not here?”

They’d had to test this sooner than they expected, when Steve had been called away on this mission. Steve had immediately arranged for Bucky to stay with Thor, in an attempt to avoid “any incidents.” Bucky suspected Steve was afraid to leave him alone, but even knowing this he had not objected to the babysitting arrangement when it was proposed, though Steve had clearly expected him to. He didn’t object because Steve had looked like he had enough troubles on his mind, and because he knew nobody would trust the Winter Soldier on a mission for a long time to come.

 

 

“You are worried for Steve,” Thor said, levering himself down at the other end of the couch after they’d eaten, with his usual forthrightness. Lobo growled at him, and Thor smiled to appease him, knowing better than to touch, “I mean no harm, friend.”

Bucky stared at his mismatched hands, the gleam of light on metal. “I should be there.”

“Natasha and Clint will not allow any harm to come to him,” Thor soothed.

 Bucky nodded. “I know.” He did not doubt that. Just as he did not doubt that Thor was there to make sure no harm came to anyone because of him. 

“I know the feeling of helplessness, friend,” Thor said, gently for him. “I felt the same when I was banished.”

“You were banished?” Bucky asked, after a moment, because Thor was trying to distract him and the least he could do was be grateful.

Thor nodded, solemn. “And made mortal.”

Bucky frowned. Thor was silent beside him, letting the pause linger, somehow sensing that he needed this time. Darcy sauntered over, having abandoned her work with Jane to join them. “Tell him the story, Thor,” she said, nudging him.

 Thor did not need much encouragement to begin regaling Bucky with the long version of the tale of how he had met Jane. He made a good storyteller, his voice suited the tale’s epic proportions of ice giants and betrayals and love across worlds. Darcy added in her own comments, explaining how and why she had tazed Thor. Her mischievous raccoon daemon ceased his gamboling and perched up on the sofa, alertly listening.

Bucky found himself thinking of those moments just after the banishment. How had Thor managed? Becoming a mere man, imprisoned in this time and this place he did not know, when once he had been all but immortal.

“It was the worst night of my life, when I found that I could not lift Mjolnir from that mud,” Thor said, uncharacteristically serious. “When I discovered I was weak.”

“Would you want to be here still? If not…” Bucky hesitated, head tilting towards Jane, who’d gone back to working, distractedly looking through papers, scribbling on the margins every so often. Her daemon, a mouse deer, ambled on little circles on legs that looked too slender for its body, every so often looking around with instinctive alertness.

As though feeling their gaze on her, Jane looked up and smiled. Thor smiled back, wide, uncomplicatedly happy in that way he had sometimes, making everything seem like it was in its place, though Bucky was beginning to suspect it was not always genuine, that uncomplicated sunny look.

“She saved me,” Thor said. “Like Steve saved you.”

Steve, who was far away and in danger, when Bucky was safe.

“Did it hurt? When you were banished?” Bucky asked, because Thor had fallen too, in his own way.

 Thor frowned. “My father’s words hurt. Just before he banished me, he called me a vain, greedy, cruel boy. He said I was unworthy of the loved ones I had betrayed.”

Somehow, Bucky knew those were the exact words his father had used. _Unworthy. Betrayed._ Like he was unworthy, like he had betrayed everything, betrayed Steve.

Jane had heard Thor. She came up behind him, laced her arms around his neck, pressed a quick kiss to his cheek. “You’re vain, but you’re not greedy, or cruel.”

 Thor just looked at her like a besotted fool, and Darcy shook her head in disgust. “You two are too sappy for words.”

 

 

Bucky did not plan to just drift into sleep while people moved around him and spoke to each other, but there was something comforting to the murmurs, something he hoped would keep the nightmares at bay.

He drifted into soft darkness and there were no nightmares, for once, until he felt something brush over his body and touch his cheek. The soldier lashed out in panic, grappling for a firm grip on something he could break, snap, end. He rolled, came up straddling a struggling body, catching flailing arms. He heard the attack cry of the hyena.

There were dark wide eyes looking at him in terror, his human hand gripping two human fragile wrists and pinning them down, the bionic hand pressing against the target’s gasping mouth so it could not bite, though it tried anyway, teeth grinding on his metal fingers. There was a drumming sound, the sound of tiny hooves beating a staccato rhythm.

Bucky blinked. _Jane._ There was a blanket on the floor. She had tried to cover him. She’d tried to cover him, and he’d almost killed her for her kindness.

He saw the fear in her eyes, was already moving his weight off her panicking body when he heard something snapping, felt himself seizing, going still.

By the time Bucky came back to himself, Thor had already thrown him against the wall, and there’d been enough vengeance dispensed that Bucky had doubled over and slid down, crumpled against the wall, shielding himself. Lobo had hidden himself away behind the couch, cowardly, panic coursing through the bond. Bucky's arm ached, and his cheek, where he had hit the wall face first. He swallowed the iron sweet taste of blood, curled into himself, withstood a couple more blows, was surprised when they stopped. 

Thor was not coming for him again, and it was because Jane had jumped up, was standing in his way. She was speaking, fast, insistent. “He was sleeping, he didn’t mean it, I’m fine…”

Darcy was standing nearby, with the device in her hand, her face scared but determined. She hadn’t needed her trusty tazer this time. Her eyes were on Jane. “You alright?” she asked, her voice shaking just a little bit.

“Fine,” Jane said. There were blotchy red patches on her arms. Bucky remembered Natasha wearing a necklace of bruises around her throat, the marks he had left on Steve waking up from his nightmares. He swallowed blood. He needed to get away. 

“Don’t run,” Jane said, although he had barely shifted. “Stay.” The tiny deer with the bold eyes quivered but stood his ground, braver than his own daemon. If Jane asked this of him after what he had done, the least Bucky could do was to face the consequences. He tilted his head, and got to his feet slowly, looking at Thor, who had stepped back. Thor gave him a slight nod, which let him know this was okay and started to say something, something between an apology and an explanation if his face was anything to go by.

 Bucky didn’t think he could listen to the man excuse his actions so he moved, stopped before he came too close to Jane, finding himself unable to meet her eyes at first, forcing himself to give her that much. “I’m sorry,” he said, insufficiently, just beginning an apology that he had no idea how to continue. He stood there, arms hanging heavily, one making him a monster, one vulnerable flesh and blood, hanging awkwardly because Thor had almost torn it out of its socket.

“No harm done,” Jane said, awkwardly, into the thick silence. Darcy was standing next to her, supportive, protective, eyes wary and sharp. The raccoon quivered with suppressed energy, as still as she was.

 Harm had been done, but Bucky did not know how to put the words to say how wrong it all was. The adrenaline was making him shake very slightly. 

 "I could have killed you," he said.

"You didn't," she responded, simply. "Even before Darcy saved me, you had realised..." she broke off, looked directly, intently at him. "I don't blame you for this, do you understand?"

He nodded. He carefully did not look at Thor. If Jane forgave him, that would be enough. Forgiveness was always harder on the loved ones of those wronged.

"I...hope that I did not hurt you over much," Thor said, somewhat stiltedly, skirting apology.

"No," Bucky said. He paused, assessed. "Nothing broken."

"Good. That's...uh...very good," Thor said, nodding. Jane frowned at him. "And...I am sorry for the misunderstanding. I thought...I believe you know what I thought."

"I know, and you were right," Bucky said. "You and Darcy." He turned to her. He had gotten through the apology, but not fulfilled the other obligation upon him in this strange, tense situation. “Thank you for...what you did,” he said.

Darcy's eyes widened slightly. “Uh, odd think to be thanked for, but yeah sure.” She flapped a hand, waving the bravely painted nails through the air. She gave a laugh that came out a bit high and cracked, filled with a release of tension. “I got you,” she said. And then, with an arch look at Thor: “I’ve done this before you know.”

 Thor’s slow, gathering chuckle broke up the tension, and Bucky thought Darcy was a little like Stark, the way she set about making smiling and speech possible again, despite it all, making the horror and the guilt fade, at least for now.

 

 

The sun was setting. Bucky stood facing the window in the empty sitting room, gazing out at the horizon. Something about the quality of red that spilled onto the earth with the dying of the sun made his heart clench and his throat constrict. He could have killed Jane. She was not like Natasha. He could so easily have ended her life, killed her as he had probably killed Howard. And she had shown him nothing but kindness. And Howard had once been his friend. What had he thought, in those final moments, when he saw the soldier coming for him? Had he recognized him as Bucky? Had he said something to try to stop him?

Darcy had left some time ago, and Jane and Thor retreated to their room. Bucky wondered if he could slip away in their absence, if he could allow himself to disobey Steve’s orders. He thought about it for a while, before he found himself moving, needing to get away. He was at the door when Thor appeared behind him, out of nowhere.

 He started slightly, couldn’t help the defensive pull back. His face and arm still hurt dully from Thor’s blows, would bruise and have to be explained. 

 “You can’t leave,” Thor said, apologetically. “Orders.”

“I need some air,” Bucky said, struggling to appear calm, collected, even as his efforts were undone by Lobo's anxious whine. “I need to get out.”

Thor looked troubled. “Are you…?” He stopped, because Bucky clearly wasn’t alright, and Thor was more intelligent that many gave him credit for.

“I’ll be on the roof. I can’t hurt anyone there,” Bucky said, as close to begging as he could make himself get, and then, because he was realistic: “Jarvis can tell you if I leave, go anywhere else.”

Thor studied him for a few tense minutes, glancing down assentingly at his daemon. Bucky felt his throat close with anger at himself and resentment at the world, simultaneously feeling he was a prisoner kept under guard and understanding why this had to be so.

Finally, giving a brief nod, Thor stepped aside. “I really don’t blame you,” he said, voice lower than usual, as Bucky passed. “Neither does Jane. You're not the only one in this team who suffers from the night visions.”

 Bucky gave him a look of appropriate gratitude, nodded his appreciation of this underserved forgiveness, and did not say it did not matter because he blamed himself. Thor understood. The god-alien, the man without a daemon, placed a hand on Bucky's bionic arm carefully, and said: “You are not unworthy. This is not a betrayal. The cruelty is not what you did, but what was done to you." 

Why it should be matter to have it stated so simply, Bucky did not know, but it did matter. And if Thor's words did not erase the guilt, at least they offered the hope that one day, Bucky would be able to redeem himself for betrayals he had not chosen, to finally be worthy of the one he loved.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Three more parts to this series, I think. 
> 
> In the next part, Bucky and Steve finally talk about their relationship.


End file.
